Director: Brandon Cawood, Whitney Cawood
To Dye For: The Documentary is a 2025 American documentary directed by Brandon Cawood and Whitney Cawood, running 84 minutes. The film follows two first-time filmmakers — also parents — who set out to investigate the hidden dangers of synthetic food dyes after a personal health crisis involving their own child.
What is To Dye For The Documentary about?
When their child develops a severe, life-changing reaction to artificial color additives found in everyday foods, a couple decides to turn their search for answers into a full documentary investigation. They cross the country to sit down with leading scientists, researchers, and pediatric health specialists, as well as families navigating the same frightening reality. Each conversation peels back another layer of a system few consumers fully understand. The film builds a picture of how synthetic dyes entered the food supply, what the current body of research says about their effects — particularly on children — and why regulatory debates have moved so slowly. Rather than offering easy conclusions, it lets the evidence speak for itself, weaving together expert testimony with the lived experiences of people whose lives have been upended by something as ordinary as a brightly colored snack.
Cast & crew
Brandon Cawood and Whitney Cawood serve as both directors and the emotional center of this documentary. As parents first and filmmakers second, they bring an urgency to their interviews that purely academic treatments of food-safety issues rarely achieve. No traditional on-screen cast is listed; the film draws its power from the constellation of scientists, clinicians, and affected families who agreed to go on record.
Context & significance
Many Iranian diaspora households are deeply invested in questions of nutrition, food safety, and how Western food systems affect children raised far from the home country. Synthetic dye sensitivity and food-additive awareness have become growing conversations in Persian-speaking communities in North America, where parents balance two culinary traditions while navigating processed-food environments. This documentary offers concrete, research-backed perspective on a topic that resonates well beyond American borders. The film is in English with no Persian audio track or subtitle option, so a comfortable level of English is helpful, but its visual and interview-driven format makes it accessible to a wide audience.
Where & how to watch
To Dye For: The Documentary is available on K-Time. The film is presented in its original English audio with no Persian dubbing or subtitles. You can stream it on the web, on your TV, or on your phone — no VPN needed, no geo-blocking, and cancel anytime.